


Seven Minutes in Heaven, Ninety Minutes in Hell

by Armajesty (hinatella)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Also Rated T for Tongue, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awkwardness, Dumb boys being dumb, Fluff, M/M, Swearing, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-12
Updated: 2014-06-12
Packaged: 2018-02-04 09:57:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1774993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hinatella/pseuds/Armajesty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The summer before their senior year, Eren's friend Armin thinks it's a great idea to bring together some friends for a final roo-haa (or whatever the word is). However, one small get-together soon turns into a disaster, and Eren is left with an even bigger one when a game of Seven Minutes in Heaven gets him trapped in a closet with his enemy-but-certainly-not-crush-because-ew Jean. Fuck his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seven Minutes in Heaven, Ninety Minutes in Hell

It was Armin's idea to have all of their friends hang around his house for the weekend while his parents were away, his reasoning being that they hardly got to see one another for the majority of the summer. “We only have two weeks left before our senior year,” he'd said. “This is our last high school summer together. Come on, guys.”

It wasn't Armin's idea to have friends of friends and friends of friends of friends and the cousins of friends (second removed) to show up. At least, that's how he'd described it when going off on a panicked tirade to Eren.

"There's only, like, fifteen people coming, Armin. Calm down."

Eren's lips constantly and sporadically twitched at the corners as he watched from Armin's bed his petit, blond friend pace back and forth and back again across the length of his room.

"I told my parents I'd only have a few friends over! Something's going to happen with that many people in one crowded area," Armin cried.

Eren rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and braced his hands behind himself on the crinkled sheets and stared back at him. "I didn't invite motorcycling acrobats or something. I can't guarantee that anyone's not prone to breaking furniture though—"

" _Eren_."

He pushed himself forward and brought his hands up in a placating gesture. "Hey, hey. You don't need to stress. It's a party. It's s'pose to be fun."

Armin audibly whined. "It's not a party. It wasn't meant to be a party. It's a g—"

"If you say gathering or get together or some lame-ass thing like that, I swear I'm kicking you out. It's a party."

"This is my room."

Eren waved a hand dismissively, brushing both that argument and subtopic out of the way.

Sighing resignedly, Armin continued. "Okay. But who's coming?"

Eren's eyes absently scanned the ceiling while he brought a hand up, putting a finger down with each name listed off. "Connie and Sasha because it isn't a party without them." He glared right into Armin's eyes as the blond's mouth fell open in protest, and when it closed again in defeat, he continued. "Reiner and probably Bert. And Ymir."

"You literally invited the most destructive people."

He shrugged in nonchalance, though it contrasted his amused smile. "The most fun people, y'mean." He brought up his other hand and started listing off more names. "Mikasa's bringing Annie and Marco."

"See, Mikasa's bringing the nice people."

"And Mina, Hannah, and Thomas."

" _Who_?"

"Some people she met over the summer on that scholars’ trip to Europe. Mikasa says they go to our school. Never met them, though."

A whining sound like a lost, confused puppy had Eren searching the room's floor for its origin, but then his eyes found Armin's anxiety-ridden face as he flopped down on his leather desk chair and slid his body into a reposed position.

Eren lifted his legs and turned his body in one smooth motion, laying length-wise on Armin's bed. He crossed his arms behind his head and turned his attention to Armin. "Who'd you invite?"

He swore he saw Armin slide down further in his seat, and he definitely noticed how the way he held his face in his hand made it seem like he was trying so very _hard_ to hide away in a small, nonexistent corner of the chair. Eren raised a questioning eyebrow.

"What?"

"Christa," Armin said lucidly, and that confused Eren because why would Christa illicit that kind of reaction from him?

"That's all?"

Armin shook his head, and Eren stared at him expectantly, waiting impatiently for him to continue on.

"And…" Biting anxiously at his lip, Armin said in a small, gratingly meek voice, "And Jean."

 _Oh_.

Eren shot up on the bed, furrowing his brows looking as though he'd been betrayed in the most horrible of ways.

"Don't look at me like that."

"How could you."

"He's my friend, Eren."

"But how _could you_."

Armin looked at him, scolding him with his eyes like the petulant little brat he knew he was being.

"He's going to ruin the party just by showing up."

"Eren—"

"Tell him it's cancelled."

"Eren, the party starts in ten minutes."

"Tell him it's cancelled," he repeated with misplaced resolve as though that would have Armin buckling and agreeing without another word. Of course not.

Armin sat up straight, looking Eren right in the eye. It made Eren feel slightly uncomfortable. "You can't despise him forever. Or pretend to, anyway."

"I'm not pretending anything! I legitimately hate him!" Eren countered defensively. His fingertips absently fidgeted with the bed sheets, and he could feel Armin's calculating, judging gaze on him, and suddenly, he was the anxious one in the room and had no idea why. No, that was a lie.

"Why?"

Eren opened his mouth to give an answer because he knew _exactly_ why he had such huge irrational disdain towards Jean Kirschtein, but his mind caught up in time before his mouth had the chance to blurt out the answer he would dearly regret revealing. So he settled on the next best answer (the first thing that came to mind). "Because he's Jean," he griped with all the obstinacy of a child.

Armin huffed and rolled his eyes in exasperation, resting an elbow on the chair's armrest and holding his forehead against his open palm. "Are you going to keep fooling yourself, Eren? It's so painfully obvious."

Eren had never wanted to smack a pillow against his friend's head so hard in the long years they'd known each other. Of course he'd figure it out. Of course he'd call Eren out on it and force him to come to terms with it because it wasn't mentally and emotionally healthy for him to dwell on thoughts involving Jean and how much he wanted to simultaneously throttle and kiss—

No. Oh, god, _no_.

Eren looked up at Armin again when he couldn't shake this intense feeling, like all of his thoughts were exposed and readable like a book. The way Armin smiled at him as if he knew all of the universe's secrets irked him.

" _What_?"

"You're _blushing_ ," he stated with elation, staring with bright-eyed wonder. "Oh, my god. You're blushing."

Eren's hand involuntarily pressed up against one cheek, though he didn't necessarily need his hand to feel the heat radiating from his face and permeating the air around him in hot, little waves of tangible embarrassment.

"Fuck."

Armin kicked his legs up and giggled at the new found discovery. "You like—"

"Shut up!" Eren shouted, taking a stray shirt from the bed and throwing it at Armin. He could feel the red hot heat spreading across the bridge of his nose now, and it only got worse as Armin pulled the shirt from his head and laughed, unaffected.

"You li—"

"No!"

Eren threw himself off the bed and lunged into Armin's lap. His fingers flew over Armin's sensitive tummy, and he watched in sardonic satisfaction as his eyes went from wide shock to little mirthful slits as he laughed hysterically.

"Don't you _dare_ finish that sentence!" Eren warned as he relentlessly tickled the blond.

Through his coerced laughter, Armin shrieked a series of "stop!"s and "no!"s and "okay!"s while he squirmed from underneath Eren, but the tickles didn't relent. Eren was determined to distract him enough to have him forget their conversation and his implied accusation ever happened.

The doorbell rang downstairs once, and Eren immediately dropped his hands. He wasn't sure he'd actually heard it and stared at Armin for confirmation. Armin narrowed his eyes a little and craned his neck to listen.

The doorbell rang again, in quick succession this time. Eren slid off and followed Armin to the bedroom door and down the stairs. He stopped when Armin paused at the foot of the stairs.

"Armin?" Eren stepped around him. "You okay?"

"This is a terrible idea," he said. Eren watched as all of the worry rushed back over his face.

Eren placed his hands on either of Armin's shoulders. "It'll be fine. Relax. Me and Mikasa's got it all covered. Just relax." He smiled in reassurance and gave Armin's shoulder a pat of encouragement. "I'm gonna go and raid your kitchen for food we can use." He lightly shoved Armin towards the direction of the front door. "You go and greet whoever's here."

Eren turned and sauntered off.

As he entered the kitchen, he could hear the discordant sound of a myriad of voices clashing together in the living room. He heard Sasha's first and Connie's soon after, probably greeting Armin with airtight hugs and unnecessarily loud voices. He could make out Reiner's voice in the mix, too. Eren could only imagine how distressed Armin felt. He smiled to himself while he looked through the cabinets, pantry, drawers, fridge, and freezer.

He began filling his arms with food and cavity-inducing sweets while he eavesdropped on the conversations going on in the next room over. It was hard to dissociate any of the voices from each other, much less try to make out any of the words. He also felt bad for letting Armin deal with, he had to admit, some of their most disorderly and brash friends alone. He toed the refrigerator door closed and walked towards the archway.

"Is this all? Well, not the kind of party I was expecting." That was Ymir.

"Mikasa's coming too. And Christa, Jean—"

Eren stopped halfway toward the entryway and had a mini heart attack because he'd completely forgotten that the bane of his existence and the source of his troubled thoughts was coming whether or not he wanted him there.

He took a few, deep breathes and decided fuck Jean Kichstein, fuck letting him get to his head. He walked out of the room, struggled to gather the food items into his arms again, and walked into the living room in time to see Mikasa come in with Annie right behind her with Armin flipping out for the second time that evening.

"He told me to," Mikasa said accusingly, pointing a finger in Eren's direction. He looked behind himself—at the narrow ceiling to floor hall mirror that projected his curious and confused reflection. He dropped his items on the coffee table and raised both hands, bent set on denying anything and everything.

"I didn't do anything."

Mikasa brought both of her occupied hands up, her fingers clutching holes in the cardboard that held a six-pack of bottles. "I bought the beer."

Armin immediately turned to Eren. "Beer, Eren? Seriously?"

Eren placed his head in his palms in shame. When he talked about it to Mikasa, he vaguely remembered jokingly mentioning something about alcohol, but hadn't expected her to follow up on it. "Okay, no—I mean, yeah, but— _no_ —"

"If it makes you feel any better, I only brought enough for each person to have like one." Mikasa gestured behind her, where Annie, Eren only just noticed, was holding three more six-packs in her hands.

Armin uncrossed his arms to pinch the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "This…this isn't going to end well."

✂

Eren was nervous. He was nervous because Armin's house was suddenly filled with more than twelve people and it made the room appear smaller than it was, and he felt claustrophobic. He was nervous because it was plain stuffy in there, and it was making it difficult to breathe.

Mostly, though, he was nervous because Jean had yet to show up and he could pop up like an annoying inconvenient zit at any given moment.

As it turned out, Mikasa accidentally sent out a mass text to every person on her contacts list, and she knew a good amount of people. Armin's house was sizable, but not sizable enough to hold over forty people in one room. Pushing the couches and the coffee table back against the walls did absolutely nothing to help make more room. Bodies poured out of the living room and into the hall, and it took Eren the whole of five minute to surmount the sea of clutching hands and end up in the empty kitchen. The loud, obnoxious electronic dance music vibrated the glass china in the cabinets, so loud Eren expected the police to show up any minute now.

He sat down on a stool, clutching the half-finished beer bottle in his sweaty hands. He took small sips at a time of the bitter, cheap-tasting liquid as he stared at the small crowd he could see from the entryway of the kitchen. A tuff of blond materialized in the crowd and, a few seconds later, a familiar body stumbled towards him. Bright blue eyes found Eren's, and he wandered over immediately.

"Eren," he breathed, then paused, eyes scanning the glass-covered cabinets. Eren looked, too; the china rattled to the rhythmic beat of the music. It made Eren wince, and he turned back to Armin and raised an eyebrow at his oddly calm expression. Armin looked on unperturbed, like glass was meant to shake like that and en up completely unscathed.

"Is everything okay, Armin?" he asked carefully, while his eyes flickered from his friend's face to the mass of bodies and back again.

"No—yeah. I mean, I'm fine. I stopped caring about this whole thing about thirty minutes ago, if that's what you mean," Armin's voice droned, nearly lost in the noise. Eren just barely attempted to pay attention as he scrutinized the crowd again.

"Oh, yeah? That's great…" Eren's eyes tapered at a particular sight in the crowd, but he relaxed when he realized it was nothing, probably a trick of the strobe lights. _When had strobe lights been put up?_

Eren turned half of his attention back to Armin, head faced forward with his eyes pointed elsewhere, when he heard him speak again.

"Yeah, I'll just get you guys to help me clean up later."

"Mmm."

"Are you okay, Eren? Are you even here? You've been fidgety and weird since… Is it because Jean is coming?"

"What?"

"Hey, guys."

Eren lifted his head up and then down to the bright face of petite Christa Lenz, and he wondered how out of it he must have been to not notice her walk in. She was small, yes, but her presence alone could automatically turn heads.

He smiled, raising a hand in a wave, and said, "Hi, Christa," the same time Armin greeted her as well.

She grinned brightly. "I haven't seen you all summer, Eren. How have you been?"

"I've been pretty good. You?"

"Same here. I had a great time going away with Ymir to Disneyland. You were a counselor at summer camp, right? How was that? I heard Jean was there, too."

At the mention of _Jean_ and _summer camp_ in the same sentence, Eren closed his eyes and sighed, as though the thought physically pained him. A mess of memories and unsightly reminders flooded into his head, memories and reminders that he made a point to push to the farthest corner of his mind and lock up with a key and chain in a safe behind an iron door and any other method he could think of.

He looked towards Armin and knew that Armin would bring it up as soon as they were alone. He briefly contemplated having Christa stay by his side for the rest of the night and possibly all eternity.

Turning back to her, he took a sip of his beer for a moment to rid his mind of the unpleasantness before answering, "It was okay. The kids were a nightmare half the time, but they weren't as bad as a certain counselor-in-training."

"That's good to hear. I have to go now, but I'll see you around, yeah?"

Eren nodded and silently lamented her departure as she left and vanished into the crowd.

He busied himself with drinking from his beer bottle, staring straight ahead at the rattling cabinets. _Don't bring it up, don't bring it up, don't—_

"So."

_God damn it._

"Hm?"

Armin sat down in a stool next to him and placed a beer bottle on the island's tabletop. It was closed and completely full. Eren didn't ask about it being in his possession, so paranoid that if he removed the bottle from his lips, he'd regret everything that would spill from his lips from that point on.

"God, Eren, calm down. You look like I'm going to dissect you."

Eren placed the bottle down in front of him. It was nearly empty. He hadn't realized that he had drank so much at once. "Dissect my mind, maybe," he muttered to himself.

Armin leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table and his cheek against his palm. "What happened this summer?"

"You couldn't just ease into it at least? Damn."

Armin furrowed his eyebrows. "What?"

"Nevermind. You know what happened; I called you, like, every week to give you updates."

Armin shook his head. "Not every week. Every other day."

Eren raised both eyebrows at that. "Seriously?"

"Are you gonna tell me exactly? I got the hint with your phone calls, but…"

Eren stared at him in confusion because there Armin was smiling at him smugly like he knew something Eren didn't know, like he was trying hard to coax the information out of him. It made him feel self-conscious, like a piece of paper with his life story and all his embarrassing details was printed to his back with super glue. He tilted his head to the side questioningly. "Huh?"

Armin's expression dropped to one of exasperation. "Your calls went from things about how much of an asshole Jean was for pushing you into the lake and stealing your underwear to things about how the way his lips move when he's eating an apple. I'm sorry, Eren, but you don't notice shit like that unless you're crushing and crushing _hard_."

Eren's hand was not-so-strategically covering the bottom portion of his face, and he stared down at the granite surface of the tabletop. He had not even realized what he ranted about to Armin the many times that he called him, only that he had to rant about something because Jean irritated him that much. Him and his stupid face and his stupid hair and his stupid mouth. And the way he ate apples was annoying. He had the habit of putting his goddamn lips around the fruit and obnoxiously sucking. And sometimes, there was _tongue_ …

Eren removed the hand wrapped around his beer bottle to clutch at his racing heart instead. He felt like a thirteen-year-old schoolboy with a crush, and the prospect of Jean being the cause made him want to punch babies to feel at least a little sane again.

Despite his obviously cracked demeanor, he was determined to admit nothing. But his strong resolve was breaking, if it wasn't completely shattered already.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." His voice cracked on the first syllable, and he sunk down in embarrassment. If Armin was his good friend, he'd allow Eren to live that down. But Armin was his best friend, and he'd reserve bragging rights for as long as they both lived.

When Armin didn't respond, Eren chanced a glance in his direction to see him staring like he was absolutely done with him. Eren didn't blame him; he was done with himself, too.

"Eren, look at me."

He hated that phrase. It forced him into a situation he didn't want to end up in. Forced him to admit to things he didn't want to. It was easier to lie when looking at newly waxed floorboards or the cracked and chips in tables. Meeting a person's eye, however? An absolute nightmare. He looked into Armin's eyes anyway because Armin would have forced him to otherwise.

"You like him, don't you?"

Eren inhaled sharply and held his breath. There it was. The thing he was trying to avoid for months now, out in the open. And though it was just him and Armin, it felt like another person outside of the kitchen could look in at any moment and literally see the question hanging above his head, neon lights and bright arrows and all.

He whimpered—he _fucking whimpered_ —helplessly before answering.

✂

When Jean finally showed up at the door in a tight-fitted shirt and an even tighter-fitted pair of jeans, a beanie cap covering his blond hair, Eren gave him a onceover before turning away and using the crowded space to his advantage, pointed on avoiding him like the nuisance he was.

Eren hung around Mikasa and the new friends she made over the summer. He got to learn of the escapades that they went through while sightseeing and learning the history of five different countries in Europe. Eren only half-listened, though, like he did when Armin spoke to him in the kitchen while he scanned the crowd for the douchebag in a beanie. And just like before, his attention was brought back again the moment anything even remotely related to Jean was mentioned. It was embarrassing. _He_ was embarrassing.

When one of them—Mina?—asked about his summer, Mikasa answered for him while he took his sweet time coming to again. And when they asked for details, Eren was forced to recall his time as a counselor-in-training alongside Jean at Camp Utgard.

He thought it would be a good idea to get away for a summer, but only because all of his friends were going away that summer, too—Mikasa with her trip to Europe and Armin with his summer internship in the next state over. He would be alone and bored out of his mind with no one to go to and hoard food from. Sitting around at home and counting how many times his ceiling fan went around in an hour was a tempting option, but he decided grabbing the second to last spot on the camp counselor list at school would be better.

Apparently, Jean had the same thought.

He didn't realize this until he went to the first counselor-in-training meeting and spotted the equine himself waltz into the room. They stared at each other, long and hard, and Eren had never wanted out of something so quickly in his short seventeen years of life. But he was stuck there; no other options were open.

Working with Jean was a living hell. To make matters worse, they had to share a cabin and set of bunk beds. They argued for hours about who would get the top bunk, went down each other's throat about the messy state of the room, and nearly knocked one another out of a ridiculous spat about stolen food stashes. It was horrible, and it only got worse for reasons Eren had no idea why. Not at the time, anyway.

He wasn't sure, but Eren figured that the breaking point for him might have been when he watched from the sidelines as Jean handled the group of toddlers that were on the camp. He watched the blond asshole take care of those kids, and they were each precious treasures, and he won't admit to a single soul that he was staring, let alone how he was staring—like a love-stricken housewife.

Then he started to watch Jean a lot more closely and noticed little things. For instance, Jean picked at the ends of his hair and dug and played with his nails whenever he was nervous. Jean rolled his eyes to the ceiling in a semi-circle and not the full thing whenever he was annoyed. Jean bit his lips whenever he was concentrated on a task, like drawing a elaborate doodle of one of the toddlers. (For the amount of work that he put in, though, they never turned out well.) Jean had a specific order in which he put on his clothes, with underwear already on, mind you. He put a sock and then a shoe on one foot before putting on another. Who does that? Only dorks and spazzes. Dorks and spazzes like Jean Kirchstein.

Eren didn't understand why he cared to watch Jean so much. He tried to make sense of it at the time; he really did. He attempted to talk to Armin about it, but his throat went dry, and when Armin's concerned voice sounded from the other end of the line, he blurted out some random, stupid crap like he was angry with the world, only he was angry with Jean, because Jean did things that Jean wasn't allowed to do. He made Eren feel things that he wasn't allowed to make him feel. How dare Jean Kirchstein. How _dare_ he.

He could see how noticing small things made it seem like he was crushing. Maybe it wasn't normal to note a person's eating habits or clothing habits or quirks and instinctually (and irrationally) get peeved by them. But Eren swore he was justified. Jean's existence in general was a whole thing he could—and wanted to—live without.

The party began to fade out and the number of people started to decrease as the night drew past midnight. By the time a handful of people were left and it was possible to actually see the other side of the room and the cups, wrappers, and bottles on the floor, Eren hoped that Jean was one of the people who'd left, too. Sadly, the universe wasn't cooperating with him, and he was left in the living room with Armin, Mikasa, Christa, Sasha, Connie, Ymir, Reiner, Annie, and, much to his great disappointment, Jean. Armin had a trash bag in his hand while the others were facing him on the repositioned couches in a half-circle.

"Okay. This place is a mess," Armin started, but was cut off by Sasha's seal-like groan.

"Why are we here again? Can we go home, please?"

"No. Now—"

"Can we chill out for a while longer? It's only twelve-thirty," Connie chimed in, form slumped against Sasha’s side.

"But—"

"I propose we play a game. Make use of all these bottles," said Ymir.

Armin placed an arm around himself and his face in his hands, sighing loudly.

The couches were pushed back against the walls again and anything on the rug in the middle of the room was pushed off to the side before everyone sat down in an elliptical shape. They tried truth or dare first, but the dares were either enough to put a person in a hospital or too lame to really enjoy while the truths were all well-known. (When asked if Eren was crushing on someone, he blatantly lied. What they didn't know wouldn't kill them. Only him. It was slowly and surely killing him. Armin smirked at him knowingly, the little shit.)

Eren had no idea what other game they played; it had something to do with bottles and flipping caps into mugs. All he was concerning himself with was the fact that from his position, he could see Jean Kirchstein perfectly. He was at an angle where his profile was set against the background of the kitchen light flooding into the entryway, and he literally looked like an angel. Or a god. Adonis.

Jean raised a soda bottle to his lips, and Eren shamelessly watched as his Adam's apple bobbed while he drank. He set the can down and stared straight at Eren, who quickly looked away, bringing his own bottle (Armin's—he didn't like the taste of beer) to his lips. And it became a routine for the next ten minutes. Whenever he was caught staring, he would take a long sip, like a drinking game—only he was completely indiscreet about it, and if he had an endless supply of alcohol, he would most certainly die of alcohol poisoning.

"Eren?"

"Yes! What!" He turned towards the source of the voice, Mikasa, sitting beside Armin, who was directly across from him.

"It's your turn."

"We should play something else. This game seems to bore Eren enough to drift off into space," said Armin, eyes glinting knowingly and teasingly and Eren's heart dropped at the inevitable premonition.

When he watched as Armin leaned over to Mikasa's ear, Eren immediately dreaded everything—being the cause of this party, being so obvious, drinking perhaps too much beer—when Mikasa's mouth widened into a dreadfully devious smile. Her eyes flickered towards Eren, then she moved back and nodded in agreement to whatever _thing_ Armin proposed.

This was bad. This was so bad.

"Guys," Mikasa started, picking up the bottle and standing up. "Let's try something new." She walked directly towards him and coerced the empty bottle into his hand. "Seven Minutes in Heaven, anyone?"

 _What_.

"Mikasa, no—"

"Yes!" Sasha shouted in excitement.

"Maybe you'll finally get your first kiss—with an actual human being even!"

Everyone collectively laughed at Connie's statement and laughed harder when Sasha’s hand met the back of his shaved head. Eren didn't laugh, however. His mind was in too much turmoil. Armin obviously thought of this. He clearly told Mikasa about it and his small, _miniscule_ crush on Jean. And they obviously planned on getting them into the same room at one time. But it was a game of chance; there was no way of exclusively getting Jean on the first try. Right?

"Alright, Eren. You first."

Eren looked up at Armin's smug face and sent him a look that he hoped said, "I'm onto you, and you're a horrible friend; I hope you know that." But his anxiety was so palpable that it inadvertently came out completely backwards.

With an exasperated sigh, Eren placed the bottle on the floor near the center of the circle. He deliberately gave a quick, weak flick of the wrist, and the bottle landed on the space between Reiner and Connie to his left.

"Oh, c'mon, Eren; what was that half-assed spin?" Reiner turned the bottle and rolled it towards him. "Spin it right, or I'll spin it for you."

God knows if Reiner spun the bottle, it would go on until the end of time. With an exasperated sigh, Eren spun the bottle again and closed his eyes, unable to bear watching where it landed.

There were eight people apart from him in the circle; that was a one-eighth of a chance of the bottle landing on Jean. Reiner would be kind of weird; Annie would be awkward and silent; having Mikasa or Armin would probably consist of being confronted for the third time that night; please, no, for the love of God, not Sasha; Ymir would tease him; Christa would start idle conversation, the angel; Connie—

"Oooh."

Eren slowly lifted his head and the first thing he noticed was Armin looking up at the ceiling and Mikasa bumping his shoulder; he noticed Sasha, Connie, and Reiner stifling giggles to his right; he noticed Christa looking as though she didn't know how to perceive the situation and Ymir outright laughing to his left; he noticed Jean staring in utter disbelief at the bottle in the center, the tip facing the soda can directly in front of him.

Oh, no.

Oh, _no_.

"Fuck, no," Eren spoke aloud.

He was slightly dazed—maybe it was the alcohol—and didn't exactly feel himself being dragged by his shirt towards the hall closet. He only barely registered the encouraging, teasing cheers of those bastards he called his friends. When the door shut in front of him, he blinked three times over and began frantically banging on the wooden surface.

"Guys! This isn't funny! Let me out!" he shouted, jiggling the doorknob. "Why the fuck does this closet have a lock!"

"Jaeger, _please_ , shut the fuck up."

Eren stopped his incessant banging and looked over his shoulder at Jean, who had seated himself on the carpeted floor and was rubbing his temples with his index fingers. He was nervously playing with the ends of his blond hair that stuck out in stark contrast against his black beanie, Eren noticed. He had no idea when Jean got in there and it dawned on Eren that there was a reason.

This was supposed to be Seven Minutes in Heaven.

He was going to be in an enclosed space with Jean Kirchstein for seven minutes.

He was meant to make out with Jean Kirchstein.

Make out. With Jean Kirchstein.

 _Make out with Jean_.

Eren started his banging again, harder this time, more frantically, determined to annoy Armin or Mikasa or someone into letting him out. He heard Jean groan in aggravation, but he couldn’t care less how obnoxious he was being. He was trying to save what little bit of sanity he had left for the night.

There was a sudden harsh bang on the over side of the door which prompted Eren to stop.

"Eren." _Armin, you littl_ e—

"Let me out."

"No, not until you work things out with Jean." There were amused giggles on the other side of the door. "I don't care if it takes you three minutes or two hours. You're not getting out until things are resolved."

"Armin!"

There was silence again and Eren guessed that meant Armin's words weren't up for discussion. He turned and slid down the length of the door until he was on the floor, his eyes closed and his elbows propped on his knees.

"So."

He jumped when the momentary silence was broken.

"What?"

"You have things you wanna work out with me?" Jean looked at Eren expectantly, almost hopefully, and, by God, his eyes were shining in the dim light of the poor excuse for a light bulb hanging from the ceiling. Eren had to place a hand other his mouth and press himself into a tight ball to keep himself doing something embarrassing—like squeal.

He didn't have alcohol to distract himself with, his half-finished bottle still in the living room. He was in a small, enclosed space with the object of his most recent tumultuous and chaotic thoughts. The door was locked from the outside, and there were no vents in the closet big enough to fit him. He was stuck. He just had to deal with this problem, but his own thoughts were more of a problem than the subject himself. He couldn’t physically escape his thoughts, not alive and breathing or in a half-conscious sleeping state.

He was fucked.

"Eren?"

He looked up when his name was called at the worried face of Jean. He drew his eyebrows together and spoke— _breathless?_ —"What?"

"You okay? You're breathing kind of hard over there."

He really was. He was so caught up in his thoughts, so caught up in worrying himself over mere musings, that he hadn't realized that he was on the verge of hyperventilating himself into a heart attack.

He was so fucked.

Jean shuffled over to him and placed himself right beside him and placed a hand on Eren's knees. He flinched at the contact, and Jean frowned, retracting it.

"I'm not going to hurt you or anything."

Right. Of course. What was Eren so afraid of? Being rash and doing something stupid, even more stupid than the way he was currently acting?

Over-exaggerating?

_It's fine._

_Just work things out._

_Work what out?_

"So, you have things you need to work out with me?" Jean tried again with curiosity.

"I—" He had no idea what he was meant to say. What did they need to work out besides the perpetual petty feud that had been going on since grade school? It wasn't even that bad nowadays. Eren considered it a personal achievement for not once sending Jean to the infirmary during summer camp even though he very badly wanted to.

Jean stayed silent, waiting, expecting. _Expectant_.

"I…I don't know."

"Okay. I'll start then." Jean adjusted his position to face Eren.

"You're not gonna kiss me, are you?" Eren squealed in horror, reeling mentally when his voice cracked again. _God damn it_.

"What?" Jean furrowed his brows with a visage of amusement. "I know we're 'playing' this dumb game, but I don't really plan on it. _They_ don't have to know," he whispered.

"Why the fuck are you whispering?" Eren muttered.

"Haven't you noticed how quiet it got all of a sudden?" Jean pushed a finger to his lips, which gave Eren a reason to look there for a split second without appearing like a complete creep, and God, they looked soft. That wasn't fair. Assholes like Jean weren't allowed to have soft lips.

Jean made a little gesture with his other hand towards the door they were leaning against and paused for a few short, quiet seconds—Eren only realized now exactly how quiet it was—before banging his fist against the door. All at once, the floor thumped, and there were little shrieks of surprise.

"Eren, was that you?"

"You _asshole_."

"Guys, I think I'm dying of a heart attack."

Well, damn. Eren was exponentially grateful he didn't spew out any blackmail-worthy material while so close to the door.

He turned to Jean, who was chuckling to himself, all too proud of exposing the eavesdroppers outside. He moved places to his previous spot against the adjacent wall and motioned for Eren to follow. When he didn't move, Jean briefly explained, "They'll have a harder time hearing us from here."

Oh, that made sense. Yeah, okay. Even while assuring himself of this, he still didn't know. With a sigh, Jean got up and physically dragged Eren to the center of the closet, his crossed legs touching the wall, and Jean sat back down.

They stared at each other in silence—nerve-wracking, impossibly loud, horrible silence—for a few minutes before Jean broke it again.

"We should discuss what happened that day, probably."

Eren stared on in confusion. "What?"

"On the last day. We got too close and…you know."

Eren shook his head slowly, bewildered. He was never good with decoding crypt messages. "I have no idea what the hell you're talking about."

"The…" He half-sighed, half-groaned. "The kiss. Sort of."

Oh, he'd forgot about that. He'd completely forgotten about that. He'd _deliberately_ forgotten about that. He'd placed specially ordered high security in his conscience for it, hired little bouncers to kindly escort that memory out of his brain, out of his mind, out of his head, and directly out of his ear. He'd left it on the camp grounds, never to be brought up again. But it stuck to him like toilet paper out of a public bathroom and laid in waiting to come back again at full force in the form of Jean fucking Kirchstein.

He got back on his feet again and practically ran fist first into the door.

"Armin! Mikasa! I'm done! Let me out! I can't deal with this shit anymore!"

The muffled reply he expected but did not want came. "No, Eren!"

He rammed his fist into the door in frustration. "Screw you guys!"

A hand on his shoulder pulled him back against the opposite wall, and his head, thankfully, collided with the robes hanging on the clothing rod.

"Jean, what the h—"

Jean grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and fiercely stared him down.

"What the _fuck_ is your problem, Jaeger?"

" _Kirchstein_ , let me go or I swear to God."

"You'll do what?" He smirked. The jackass had the audacity to _smirk_. A record of going two full months without screwing up Jean's face wasn't too bad, and Eren raised his fist, ready to break it—

Knocking on the door.

"Be nice in there!"

Jean turned to the door momentarily before turning back to Eren, looking over him once and letting go of his shirt. Eren wiped his palms—they'd gotten so clammy, _gross_ —on his jeans and sat back against the door, as far away from Jean as possible, which wasn't very possible when they were caged into such a tiny space.

They sat in silence, Eren twiddling his thumbs as he stared Jean down from a couple of feet away. He had taken out his phone and pointedly chose to ignore Eren while his fingers swiftly swiped over the screen of his phone, his lips set into a displeased frown. As if he had anything to be upset about. The proverbial floodgates of Eren’s mind opened, and he was forced to dwell on the things that he was doing a pretty damn good job of forgetting about until now.

The thing he dubbed The Near Kiss Experience before repressing it into minute nothingness.

It was still fuzzy, and he had no idea exactly how it happened, only that he and Jean were standing face to face and he was silently lamenting the fact that that two-toned blond moron was marginally taller than him and the uncharacteristic, non-malicious gentleness was pulling him towards Jean. It was hard to tell whether they were both leaning in simultaneously or not, but Eren was fully sober at the time and when it hit him that he was so close to Jean and getting closer and when he remembered that he had never actually kissed a person before in his sad seventeen years of life, he freaked out and sputtered his way out the cabin's front door.

He felt flustered over the fact that he ran away more than the fact that he _near kissed_ Jean. And in that moment, he realized that—

He liked Jean.

He _really_ fucking liked Jean.

And it was around that time that he made a pact with himself to forgive himself for having such an absurd thought and forgetting it so he could move on. He thought he would just deal with his feelings—gross—once they started school again and he was forced to share half his classes with Jean like every year. Because the universe wanted them together, apparently.

When he felt eyes on him, he looked up to the befuddled expression Jean was wearing.

"Hey, you okay?"

He was confused this time until he heard his own hard breathing and felt his chest rapidly rise and fall with each near-gasping breath. He was really hyperventilating this time.

Jean dropped what he was doing, stopped texting whoever he was texting, and scooted over to Eren again. He looked as though he wanted to touch Eren, give him some form of comfort, and he was debating whether he should go for it or not. He didn't just yet, instead offering words of encouragement.

"Breathe, Eren. It's okay. You're okay. Just breathe."

It took a while for him to calm down, and when he did, he felt the faint, light touch of slender fingertips rubbing circles into the inside of his wrist. He looked down and watched Jean’s finger on his skin. He shivered, then glanced back up at light brown eyes.

It was kind of uncomfortable, being able to hear his breathing as well as Jean's. There was a light, fuzzy static sound in the air that indicated the television had been turned on, so they were completely alone as far as Eren knew. The fuzziness could've also been due in part by the alcohol, but Eren didn't drink often (only one other time), and he didn't know when exactly it started to affect him.

"Eren," Jean called so quietly, it was as if he was afraid of breaking the silence. "Do you seriously hate me?"

Eren was not expecting that question. Not at all. His heart did that stupid thing where it momentarily skipped a beat, and he made a little gasping sound as it did and stared down at the close ground to avoid what would more than likely be a mocking, wry smile on Jean's lips.

Eren gulped, eyes darting all over. "What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. Just answer the question."

There was his heart, in his chest, hammering and mercilessly pounding against the inside. He didn't want to give the same lame excuse he gave Armin earlier (even though, in his hot mess of a mind, it _was_ the truth), but he didn't want to say what was on the tip of his tongue, either. But he had nothing else to say, nothing else he could think of that would be at least remotely appropriate and acceptable. And when he felt the pressure, he blurted the first thing that was on the tip of his tongue.

"Idon'treallyhaveavalidreasonforhatingyouyou'rejustreallyfrustrating."

He continued to cast his gaze downward, not daring to face Jean. And his mouth was doing that thing where once he started talking, he did not know how to stop. He was feeling light headed and stupidly bold as he stared down at the ragged carpeting and continued.

"I-I mean, sure, you're an asshole. A major asshole. The biggest asshole on Earth. But you have a good side, too, I guess. Like, you're not a complete asshole. And it's frustrating."

"Am I supposed to be insulted or…?"

Eren just shrugged his shoulders. "Take it how you want," he mumbled faintly.

"What do you mean by ‘frustrating’?"

Eren wanted to stop talking, but a moment of silence now would only spur Jean on in questioning and getting more answers. And his mouth refused to stay still for more than five seconds. He glanced up at Jean momentarily, right up into his genuinely curious face, but he didn't have the resolve to keep eye contact and reverted his attention back down to the floor.

"You just… It's not fair because you aren't allowed to do things like that, Jean."

"Like what?"

"Like, _y'know_."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

Eren grumbled silently, his hand raking through his messy brown hair before he looked Jean straight in the eye. At least that way, he wouldn't lie and say something ten times more ridiculous than the truth. Only, when he parted his lips to speak, the incoherent, discordant tumbling of words wouldn't come tumbling out of his mouth. It was in his mind, though—an unruly mess of words and broken sentences filled with feelings and emotions and things he was not so great at expressing.

So, he expressed it in the only way he knew how and the only way he wanted to: with brazen, rash action and no thought put into the action.

Eren picked himself up from the floor to rest on his knees, placing both hands on Jean's shoulders.

He looked down at Eren's hands before directing his bewildered focus up at him. "What are you doing?"

He had no idea, honestly, and wasn't going to start thinking about it. Not now. "Just…hold still."

With a slightly quivering hand, Eren tilted Jean's head up to face him and dipped his head down, moving too slowly and too quickly for his own liking. He watched as Jean's expression flickered quickly from confusion to realization in an eye-blinking flash, his eyes widening the closer Eren came.

And then the feeling of something unexpectedly soft and a little damp with soda pressed against his lips, and Eren's insides began fluttering all at once. He felt lightheaded and lightweight, and the room was impossible still and so quiet, he was sure he could hear Jean's own heart beating too quickly in his chest, nearly in tempo with his own.

Eren pulled away and found Jean's eyes fluttering open. They very briefly made eye contact, and it was still silent, so silent, so uncomfortably silent. Eren wanted Jean to just say something already before his mind caught up with his actions, before he immediately regretted everything and wanted to sink into the creases of the towels folded up on the shelves above them—before he began to doubt himself.

"I-I. _Fuck_. You just—I wasn't—" Jean sputtered and kept sputtering, utterly flustered with a growing angry, red blush sprouting across his pasty face.

Eren had to bite his lips and tighten his grip on Jean's shoulders because he was being exceptionally cute. _Adorable_. It only made him blush for the third time that night, and his heartbeat was slowing down as he began to feel the slightest bit sure that he affected Jean at least a fraction of how Jean affected him. It wasn't fair. Jean wasn't allowed to be cute. He wasn't allowed to make Eren feel things other than anger and frustration and the occasional rivaling haughtiness.

Jean continued to spew out a slew of barely formed and half-finished sentences. "Eren, you—Fuck. Shit. I—what the fff—" He buried his head in his hands and stayed that way for so long, Eren began to doubt himself again, the nerves very slowly seeping back in.

"Oh, fuck, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. I mean, I did, but I didn't think and… Sorry, Jean. " Eren's hands slid from his shoulders and to his sides, head hanging low, nerves pounding against his ears, and breathing absently getting heavy again. He considered suggesting they completely forget that ever happened, but he knew that wouldn't work out. He wasn't sure about Jean, but he would forget it for a moment only to have the smallest thing remind him of the time he kissed Jean Kirchstein and got painfully rejected.

But no, he wouldn't forget because he couldn't. He was being stupidly abrasive now and may as well roll with it. Tell Jean everything.

"Look, Jean. I don't care if you reject me or anything, and I know this sounds really fucking stupid and awkward, but hear me out." _No, stop talking_. "I don't know what this is, okay. It's really weird, and it's doing things to me, and I tried to push it away because I thought it was some weird side effect of the whole ‘hating you’ thing—and I still do sometimes, but it's for a completely different reason than what you think." _Please, stop saying words_. "And it took, like, a whole month and Armin beating it into me, but—" His mind actually physically stopped him, placing a gross, clammy hand over his mouth.

Except that hand wasn't a weird, physical manifestation of his mind. It was Jean's hand.

"Don't."

Eren's heart dropped to the floor—literally crawled out of his belly button and face-planted woefully into the ground. _Oh, god, here it comes. I'm not ready. Jesus, fuck, I'm not ready_.

"Let's just skip the awkward and get to the thing."

Eren blinked, puzzled. "What?"

"Let's not do the whole confession thing. We both know it now, and it's hella embarrassing."

Eren's mind was a jumbled mess trying to decipher what Jean was getting at. He was only sixty-percent sure, but he needed to hear it spoken out in the open so he could place the memory at the forefront of his mind to fall asleep with at night. God, that was lame. He was already becoming a lame, love-struck teenager, and he hadn't heard a proper confession yet.

"I'm sorry, Jean, but I'm gonna need you to spell it out for me."

Jean groaned, eyes rolling. "Seriously?"

"I wanna make sure!"

"You’re so _dumb_. I like you, you idiot!"

Eren went from flaring irritation to surprise to odd satisfaction and elation in two seconds flat. He wanted to bounce off the walls, rub it in the faces of the idiots who didn't think it would happen (this included the Eren that existed about a month ago), and streak across his neighborhood with the words "HE LIKES ME!" written in neon paint across his ass.

But he wasn't that insane. Instead, he settled for taking his happiness and tightly wrapping it around Jean's neck until he was near choking.

"Eren, God, please get away from me! I can't breathe!"

"Jean!"

"Seriously, Eren!"

"Jean!"

"Eren, please! Since when were you so clingy—"

"Jean, you like me!"

"Yes, I like you, you dork! Now, let go!" His voice was starting to strain then, and Eren reluctantly unwrapped his arms from his neck, but his fingers still lingered against his neck and shoulders as he looked down at Jean.

He was so giddy. Everything felt right in the world, and the smile and redness that made itself home on his face would not leave. Jean's eyes were pointedly looking to the left, fingers fidgeting with the creases of his jeans.

"What happens now?" Eren asked. The only thing he wanted to do at that moment was to kiss Jean's face again, but he _barely_ refrained.

"What do you mean?" Jean mumbled, glancing up at Eren.

"I'm not good at this whole romance thing. What do we do now?"

"I don't fucking know, Eren. We're locked in this closet for God knows how long."

Jean moved with his back against the wall again, and Eren followed suit, hand picking at the pieces of the carpet that stuck out and brushing against Jean's fingertips pressed flat against the ground.

Eren chewed at his bottom lip. Now or never again. "We could do that thing again. That kissing thing."

"Oh."

Eren's teeth were practically gnawing at his lip now. At that point, he wanted his lips to be rendered an angry red, but that wasn't how he imagined it would happen.

It was quiet for about five long, awkward minutes (maybe it was actually two seconds, Eren couldn't tell. Being in this closet for so long without a clock had effectively screwed up his perception of time).

Then he heard a quiet, little "Fuck it," and before he could ask, he was being pulled by the back of his head, and their lips were touching for a second time. Eren wasn't the one initiating the kiss this time, and he wasn't expecting it at all, so his lips faltered and didn't move. Jean pulled away, uncertainty written all over his face which, Eren thought, was dumb, considering he's the one who asked in the first place. He slung both arms around Jean's neck and brought him close, pressing his chapped lips to the soft ones that still tasted like Dr. Pepper.

The kiss was shy and closemouthed, and Eren had no idea what he was doing. So, of course he chose that moment to muster up all the imagery he remembered of make out sessions in movies and videos on questionable make-your-mother-faint websites.

He opened his mouth very slightly, closed his eyes, and tilted his head to one side, and he prayed to God that he was doing it right as he started moving his lips. And he must have because Jean was following his lead. The hand on his messy brown hair had dropped to the back of his neck, and another hand was snaking around his waist and pulling him closer. His insides felt like liquid and air, swooshing together and bouncing around simultaneously. Jean's smell, Jean's taste, Jean's desperate touch was so intoxicating—it left Eren in a greater state of inebriation than the alcohol he consumed earlier. He craved more, sought for more, tightening his hold and pulling Jean closer.

Their teeth clacked together painfully, and they flew apart, hands nursed over their mouths.

"Ow!"

"Fuck!"

Jean glared at Eren, and Eren would have glared back, but a giggle ruptured from his throat, and very soon, he was clutching his waist and clamping his hand over his mouth to stifle his laughter.

Jean's eye twitched in annoyance. "What the hell is so funny?!"

Wiping away the tear clinging to his eyelash, Eren waved a hand in the air. "Nothing. Just—" He reassumed his position and leaned close to kiss Jean again.

Then their noses bumped together. Eren didn't bother silencing his laughter this time, and he heard Jean's own (cute) laugh soon after.

"You're dumb," Jean chided playfully, pushing his shoulders.

"No, _you_." Eren placed his hands on Jean's chest to push him back, but Jean grabbed his hand before he could and yanked him forward, and they were kissing again. Only, this time, it was slightly more aggressive, with Eren half on top of Jean and Jean's arm around his waist. His hand clung to the front of Jean' shirt as he kissed back, trying with great effort to match Jean's impressive kissing prowess. He jolted when Jean's teeth gently nipped his bottom lip, and he shivered when his wet tongue slowly slid along the small nip.

Eren clumsily mimicked those actions, bashfully using his tongue and teeth to pull and tug and get a taste of Jean's lips. When Jean gave a hum of approval, Eren boldly used his tongue to coax his mouth open because he needed more.

It was sloppy and messy and absolutely mind-numbing, the way Jean pulled at Eren's hair and the way Jean felt under his fingertips as his hands roamed Jean's clothed chest, his toned arms, his stomach. The room temperature was rising suddenly, and Eren began to feel light-headed, but he figured it was just a result of being so close to Jean with little to no room in between their bodies and their mouths moving so vehemently against each other.

He was starting to go dizzy, and a ringing began in his ear and only seemed to grow louder. The light feeling wrapped around his head made his body feel like it was floating on air.

This is what it felt like to kiss Jean.

This is what it felt like to _kiss_ Jean.

This is what it felt like to kiss _Je_ -

✂

Eren fainted.

Eren Jaeger fainted mid-make out session, and his friends will probably not allow him to live it down for as long as he lived.

Apparently—and this was what Jean told a very distraught Armin and Mikasa upon Eren waking up—they didn't bother taking a break while kissing. Armin smacked Jean on the head, and Mikasa hit him on his arm, revoking him because he was incredibly stupid and, “that's, like, the first rule of making out. How do you forget to take breaths in between?”

Eren wanted to defend him, reminding the two he did have slight claustrophobia and that may have had something to do with it, but they were having none of it. He tried explaining that he should've pulled away every so often, too, but no, Mikasa and Armin shut him down. How would Eren know to take breaths? It was his first kiss. _Wow, thanks for making that known to the room full of friends and questionable acquaintances._

Jean freaked out, made a failed attempt at performing CPR (no one believed him when he mentioned that. No one but Eren because that was exactly the kind of thing Jean would do and it was kind of cute), and started banging against the door, and Armin went to respond. At first, Armin didn't believe him when Jean told him that Eren was passed out in his arms. He was thoroughly shocked when he opened the closet about ninety minutes later to find the two within the stuffy closet, Eren's slumped form leaning on Jean.

When Eren woke up again, he was on the couch. Most of their friends had gone home immediately afterwards, save for Jean. He licked his drier than usual lips to find that he tasted a lot like Jean, and he smiled like a giddy idiot to himself.

Jean left with Mikasa afterwards (not without giving Eren a sheepish goodbye kiss and Eren giving him an adorable, awkward, long hug at the door), and Eren followed Armin to his bedroom, opting to stay the night and help him with cleaning the next morning.

They only reached the threshold before Armin spoke up. "So."

"Yeah?"

"How did Seven Minutes in Heaven with Jean go?"

Eren pointed and—mirthfully—glared at Armin. "That wasn't even seven minutes. It was actual hell. I can't fucking believe I passed out."

Armin snorted, and his hand went up to his mouth as he tried—and failed—to stop himself from laughing.

"Shuddup. This was all your fault."

"I'm sorry," Armin said. There wasn't any actual apology in his tone, but Eren couldn't bring himself to care.

He lightly bumped his fist against the blond's shoulder. "Hey, thanks. This was all pretty shitty, but I wouldn’t have change anything."

Armin scrunches up his nose distastefully. "That was so lame, Eren. Gross."

Eren groaned, burying his head in his palms. "I _know_. I sound like a Disney movie, and it's gonna get worse now that Jean and I are—" He stopped himself, heart skipping and faltering and tripping in his chest. He quickly changed the subject. "By the way."

"Hm?"

"How the fuck did the bottle end up pointing at Jean? Was it fate?"

"Oh, Eren." Armin gave him a pitying look.

"What?"

He dug in his pocket and pulled out a small item. A metal ring. "I put this in the bottle and a magnet in Jean’s soda. It's literally the oldest trick in the book."

Eren promptly slammed the door shut in his face.

"Eren!" Armin's muffled yell sounded from the other side. "Eren, open the door! I'm sorry!"

"Fuck you, Armin!" Eren angrily sat down on the desk chair, arms folded and body slumped in poor posture.

"Eren, this is my room!"

"Sleep on the couch!"

"Eren!"

He pretended not to listen beyond that point as he silently fumed. Only, he wasn’t actually angry. He couldn't be angry. If it weren't for Armin, he would be avoiding Jean like he were the last slice of bread in a loaf for a long time, and he would have had to deal with his repressed feelings for who knew how much longer. It definitely was not how he would have wanted to go about making his feelings known, but he was grateful.

Eren leaned his head against the back of the chair, smiling up at the ceiling, teeth biting his reddened bottom lips as he ignored the crossed shouts from Armin.

Yeah.

He was grateful.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the very first fic that I'm contributing to the SNK fandom (and definitely not the last). This idea popped into my head and I had to write it. It was originally suppose to be like 3k words but it got out of hand and turned into this half way through aha woops. This is really fun to write regardless~ The world needs more erejean.
> 
> Thanks so much to momohime69 and FearMeIAmNotAGod for beta-reading this. You guys are amazing <33
> 
> And thank you so much for taking the time to read. ♥
> 
> Also, as a side note, I'd like to mention that I do not advocate the punching of infants okay.


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